Carnifex

4/Intercalary/466 AC, Officers' and Centurions' Club, Camp Balboa, Ninewa, Sumer

Carrera had extended his leave to spend local Christmas with his family. And he'd felt like a rat, too, camp-sick the whole time for his army and guilty that all those deployed couldn't be home with their families.

Patricio Carrera, Dux, in Latin, or Duque, in Spanish, commander of the deployed portion of the Legion del Cid, drummed his fingers with irritation while watching the projection screen set up in the main room of the club.

"What are you going to do if you win, Adnan?" Carrera asked of the Sumeri, Adnan Sada, seated to his right.

"To answer that question, Patricio, you have to answer the question of why the people would have voted for me."

"Because here, in Ninewa and over in Pumbadeta provinces we've got relative peace?"

Sada laughed, slightly and cynically. "That's a part of it, too, of course. But the real reason, only somewhat related to that, is that I am not a nut, either tribalist, sectarian, fascist or leftist, that I am not really a democrat, and that I am ruthless enough to hold things together. If they vote for me, they're voting to hold the country together, whatever it takes. They're also voting to get rid of this experiment in parliamentary democracy which scares the living shit out of most of them."

"You mean they want to have 'one man, one vote, once'?"

"Pretty much," Sada agreed, then amended, "or rather, they don't want there to be a chance for the rise of the sort of lunatics democracy tends to throw up in this kind of society. They also want their traditions and their tribes respected. They want someone able to keep the Farsi at bay; yes, even the ones who share sect with the Farsi would prefer being a majority in a non-sectarian Sumer to being an Arab minority in a non-Arab state."

"Are you planning on de-socializing?"

"There's no way to," Sada answered, definitively, "not entirely. It's the curse of a single-resource economy. When someone tells me how to divide up the oil without just pouring money into corrupt hands . . . "

Sada's face suddenly looked grim as his voice acquired a hint of despair.

"Most Arabs, you know, think Allah gave us the oil as a special gift because he loves us. I suspect he gave it to us as a trap because he hates us."

Carrera looked down, thinking, Balboa, too, is something of a single resource country, the Transitway. The other major income producer, the Legion, is not, strictly speaking, a part of the economy. How would Balboa divide the Transitway? When they've tried it just meant huge bribes for private profit.

Sada continued, "I am of a mind to de-socialize most of those things the previous government took control of; agriculture, construction, liquor distilling. Who knows, maybe I'll be able to buy a decent local beer and whiskey someday, rather than having to rely on the Legion's unofficial imports."

Sada was not one of those Moslems who took the proscription against alcohol too very seriously.

"In any case," Sada finished, "I will deliberately wreck this doomed-to-fail, absolutely impossible experiment in parliamentarianism and work to create what can work, a federation of the tribes with a national army. And, after all, what the hell difference what kind of government we have provided it doesn't try to govern much? I will never be able to eradicate corruption so I'll just have to work with it, even to regularize it."

That sparked a thought for Carrera. When the day comes, as it will, when the government of Balboa has to go, how will Parilla and I organize the country? Around the provinces that, outside of Valle de la Luna, don't mean much? Around the tercios of the legions? It's something to think on. Of course, first we'll have to fight the Taurans who are only in Balboa to ensure we can't get rid of the government.

Carrera's thoughts were interrupted by a loud cheer and some warbling from the female serving staff at the club, which included several dozen Sumeri hookers, war widows mostly, that the Legion had taken under its wing. He looked up and saw that the main screen showed election returns from Pumbadeta and its environs; a sweep for Sada.

"They appreciate that, as far as they can tell, I saved them from you," Sada commented, with a grin.

It was true enough. Without Sada's personal example and intervention Carrera had been determined to kill every Pumbadetan male capable of sprouting a beard. And they'd known it.

Nice to see they pay their debts, Carrera thought.

There was another cheer, and more female warbling, as the results for Ninewa were shown on the screen. It was rather more subdued, though. There had never been any doubt of how the base province for Sada's own force, now a near mirror image of Carrera's, would vote.

"Babel is the real question," Sada observed. "It's going to be close."

The officers and senior non-coms—centurions, sergeants-major, signifers, tribunes, and legates—couldn't have been more interested in watching the election results on the main room's four meter projection screen than they would have been if the election had been held in their base country of Balboa. After all, it was their man, their ally, Adnan Sada, running for the highest office in the Republic of Sumer.

Surrounded by the others, Carrera's and Sada's fingers continued to drum. Watching the numbers shift was as nerve wracking as any battle.

No, thought Carrera. It's more nerve-wracking than a battle. For in battle I have control, a control I know how to use to good effect. Here, with this election, I have little. Unconsciously, he stopped the drumming with his right hand, moving the thumbnail to his teeth to nibble.

Sitting to Carrera's left, Sergeant Major McNamara noticed the nervous biting and, thinking to kill two birds with one stone, poured a fresh drink into the crystal glass on the arm rest between them. The whiskey made tinkling sounds as it splashed over the ice.

Thank God, John McNamara thought, that he's cut down on the drinking since seven years ago.

Still unconsciously, Carrera stopped his nail gnawing to pick up the glass. Unseen by Carrera, Sergeant Major McNamara smiled slightly at the Sumeri, Qabaash, seated behind Sada. Qabaash rarely smiled outside of battle. He did offer his glass behind Carrera's back to McNamara for a refill.

"Heretic," Carrera whispered when he turned saw the drink in Qabaash's hand.

"It's not what you Nazrani would call a mortal sin, sayidi," Qabaash answered. "Besides, Allah is the all merciful, the all-forgiving, despite what some Salafi assholes would have you believe. And He knows I need the bloody drink now, if ever I did."

Carrera nodded, then replaced his own drink on the arm rest. Re-fixing his attention on the screen he went back to his gnawing. This time McNamara gave off an "ahem" to remind his chief of the proper decorum.

"Well, dammit," Carrera answered, "this election decides the war. If we win it, we'll have won. If Sada loses . . . "

"Civil war," Qabaash supplied. "There is no one else to hold the country together, just a bunch of corrupt tribal and sectarian idiots who'll pull us apart. And no, I don't mean random terrorism; I mean civil war."

Carrera and McNamara tactfully refrained from mentioning that civil war in Sumer was potentially just another employment opportunity for the Legion del Cid. Besides, they really did want to win the war in Sumer. It wasn't as if there would be a lack of other employment opportunities, after all, not in the long run.

"Il hamdu l'illah!" exclaimed Qabaash. To God be the praise.

Carrera looked back at the screen. The precincts for Babel had begun to report in. The few initial reports quickly became a cascade. Mentally echoing Qabaash, he thought, Thank you, God or Allah, or whatever name You prefer to go by.

Turning to Sada, Carrera offered his hand. "Congratulations, Mr. President."

The hookers' warbling grew to a torrent of sound to compete with the thunder of slapped backs and smashed crystal.